I’d like to ask for suggestions on how you think the new revision should look, what extra features you’d like to see and if there is anything else we can do to improve your experience here. We’ve already hired a great designer who will welcome your input.

Thanks to everybody who shares their opinions here (we’ll also hand out some random prize to the best suggestions).

Over on CG-UK we’ve scored an interview with a couple of senior people in Sony’s TV division with a slight twist – you get to ask the questions!

The interview is with Sony Europe so obviously any questions about product range or marketing will be limited to that region, but the technology is universal so if you’ve got a question about Sony TV/Blu-ray products or technology now’s your chance to ask.

We will be submitting the questions to Sony next Monday so you’ve got the rest of this week to think about it. To see who’s taking part in the interview and find out how to submit your questions, head over to the post on CG-UK.

Hi, we were a bit slow on the uptake to do this but you can now follow Coolest Gadgets via twitter and facebook. So you now have the following ways to keep up with coolest gadget news:

• Become a fan on facebook
• Follow us on Twitter
• Our RSS feed
• The daily email
• and of course, the Web Site

I think that’s just about covered all bases (for now).

Starting next week we’ll be publishing our annual gadget gift guides, if there is a guide you’d like to see drop us a comment here and we’ll do our best to accommodate. In fact we’ll give a $50 Amazon voucher for the best suggestion (a few ideas from last year’s gift guides).

We also have a few other competitions lined up over the festive period so watch this space.

Have a fun and fantastic weekend folks.

In our daily quest to find the latest cool gadgets we often come across what can at best be described as “not exactly cool” or more realistically just darn foolish. They maybe foolish but they can be exceedingly amusing hence our new sister site Foolish Gadgets is born.

If you want to amused by the foolish side of the gadget world please check out Foolish Gadgets, or subscribe free via the feed or the Foolish Gadgets daily email digest.

As always suggestions and ideas would be greatly appreciated, even foolish ones.

…

An email address that begins with vromanovich@, so congratulations vromanovich, we’ll be in touch to sort out the details.

…

Thanks again to everybody whi contributed, if you missed the survey the first time round and can spare us 5 minutes you can find the survey here (no prizes this time though).

Sony is giving one of our readers the chance to win the fantastic new NWZ-A829 Walkman Video MP3 player. Packed with features and weighing a mere 58 grams this new arrival will store up to 16GB of music, video and snaps. It even has built in Bluetooth® stereo, so you can listen to your music without the hassle of getting tangled up in those pesky headphone wires.

To be in with a chance just follow this link to the Sony Style site to find the answer to these simple questions:

Question 1: What is the ‘special blue’ key feature of the NWZ-A829 Walkman?

Question 2: What is the LCD screen size of the NWZ-A829Walkman?

Question 3: How light is the NWZ-A829 Walkman?

Once you have the answers, simply send them to us via our contact form or email “contests@coolest-gadgets.com” and if you’re feeling nice you could always tell a friend about the contest. Contest closed.

Full terms and conditions and obligatory small print are:

- Competition is open Worldwide, to persons aged 18 or older
- The winner will be chosen at random from all correct entries received and will be contacted personally after the closing date as advertised on the entry page
- The prize is one (1) Sony NWZ-A829 Walkman
- Prizes must be taken as stated and cannot be deferred
- There will be no cash alternatives
- Entries can be submitted until Wednesday, May 7th, 11:59PM GMT.

Good luck everybody.

If you are reading this via our feed please come on over and check it out, all opinions are very welcome.

The main changes we’ve made are:

• We’ve removed some of the adverts that we thought were too in your face
• At the bottom of all posts there is now an option to “Mail to a friend”
• The layout of individual posts has been radically neatened
• Navigation moved from the left to the right

If you have any suggestions on either the look or just in general please let us know.

Thanks for reading.

Along with gadgets Alltop has sections for other popular blogging niches (Gaming, Politics, Photography etc.). Though why you’d want to stray away from gadgets and tech I don’t know.

This post maybe somewhat on the biased side, as Alltop is a project by Guy Kawasaki and I’m currently sat in a room listening to him.

So now find out about all the latest cool gadgets in a way that’s convenient to you:

• Email (once per day)
• Mobile Phone
• RSS Feed
• The Site

Thanks to Sarah for giving us the push to add the email option, something we should of done a while ago.

One of our aims for 2008 was to finally break into the top 1000 blogs according to Technorati (which is based on how many other blogs link to you), we’ve been petering on the edge for a while and finally broke in this afternoon at position #998.

I would like to thank every blog and blogger that has ever given us link credit to our stories, we will always strive to do the same. So in no particular order (though the sites in bold are the ones that I see a lot) I’d like to say a big cheers and thanks to:

• s2999
• Geek Chic
• Compradiccion
• Noantri
• Ektopia
• Slash Gear
• Gizmodo
• Digital Drops
• Geek Alerts
• Gadgettastic
• Grupo Geek
• Gadget Reporter
• Gear Log
• Geeky Gadgets
• Tip of the Day
• Zedomax
• Tech News 2 U
• Monster Works
• No Puedo Creer
• To all the others that I missed, thank you and I’ll try to include you next time

The next target for 2008 is to get our subscriber base up to 100,000 so if you haven’t subscribed to our feed yet here it is .

The FPS Gaming Vest had a commanding lead but out of nowhere the Computerized Chopper starting getting a load of votes. After checking logs, IP addresses and what not, we’ve got to discount at least 200 votes for the chopper, so the official Coolest Gadgets coolest gadget of CES 2008 is the FPS Gaming Vest, which just shows that we’re a bunch of masochists that like being punched when playing games.

Surprisingly we only had 10 comments on the post, one of which will win the $50 Amazon voucher and according to random.org the winner is…..

…Ian, so congratulations and I’ll be in touch about where to send the voucher to. Thanks again to everybody who voted and commented and whoever tried to rig the vote err why!

We do have more contests and give-aways planned this year and some other exciting news, so if you haven’t subscribed to our feed () yet there’s no time like the present.

We would like to wish all of our readers a very merry Christmas and hope you get all the gadgets on your Santa list.

All the very best

The CG Team

Black Friday has finally passed. Some people braved the crowds in search of the best deals, while others stayed in the safety of their own homes. I was one of the crazy people who made their way to the stores in search of an awesome deal. I might be crazy for doing it, but now I’ve finally replaced my recently deceased laptop. Here’s the tale of just what it took to get my hands on it.

Like many people, I checked through the Black Friday ads several days in advance, this way I could make sure that I got the best possible deal. After much deliberating, I ended up deciding on the HP Pavilion dv6607nr at Best Buy for $449. That’s around $200 cheaper than I’d find for something similar directly from HP, and it fit all of my needs. The best part is that Best Buy had a couple of other laptops that I knew would be in higher demand, so my odds of claiming one of these was pretty decent.

I’m a night owl, so I was up pretty late the night before Thanksgiving. I just happened to check out the Best Buy website to double-check one of the specs on the laptop when I discovered that they had it listed for sale online. For an extra $30 I could have the same laptop next Tuesday, and I wouldn’t have to spend countless hours out in the freezing cold. So I placed my order, and after receiving my confirmation email, I went to bed.

After finishing up my Thanksgiving dinner I drove back home, and decided to stop by Best Buy to see what sort of line had formed. It was around 8:30, and about 22 degrees outside, yet already well over a hundred and fifty people. Had I not found the notebook for sale online, I would be one of those crazy people. I thanked my good fortune and drove home. When I double-checked my order status, it still showed everything to be alright, with my order to be delivered the following Tuesday.

I woke up the next morning (Black Friday) around 10am and decided to once again check on my order, because I’m always paranoid about such things. That’s when my heart sank, the laptop was placed on backorder, and wouldn’t ship for 1-2 weeks. Knowing how great Best Buy is with their online orders, I feared that it might never be fulfilled. That’s when I decided to brave the crowds and drive down to the store.

To say that the store was in a state of chaos would be putting it lightly. I’ve worked retail on Black Friday before, so I was prepared. After making my way back to the laptops I cornered an employee and questioned him about the particular laptop I was wanting. He said I was in luck, and he still had two in stock. Great, right? Had this not been Best Buy, he’d have gotten me one and I’d have been on my way. Alas, I still had to fight for my prize.

The associate then told me that the only one he had left already had an antivirus preinstalled, so I’d have to buy it as-is for $529. I actually worked at Best Buy some time ago, so I’m quite familiar with this scam (though I refused to use it when I worked there) so I explained to the guy that he really didn’t need to try that with me, and that the more time he spent arguing with me was less time he could be trying to sell service plans to other people. He still wouldn’t budge, and that’s when I remembered what he said when I first approached him: he’s got two in stock.

He wasn’t happy when I inquired about the second laptop still in stock. He even tried to dissuade me from purchasing it “because I wouldn’t be protected.” That’s pretty ballsy move considering how much time I spent telling him that I did not want their antivirus software. I was nearly ready to call his manager over when he begrudgingly retrieved the laptop. He then took it to the Geek Squad counter and told the guy not to bother trying to sell me anything else and left without another word to me.

In the end I got the laptop I wanted, and I was fortunate enough not to wait out in the cold for hours to do so. Sure the guy at Best Buy was very rude to me, but I really didn’t expect anything less. I’ve only barely had the chance to get it out and play with it, but I like it so far. I’ll give you guys an update once I have a chance to really break it in. How did everyone else fair on the busiest shopping day of the year?

Firstly thanks to everybody who entered and shared with us their Coolest Gadget of 2007, I’d also like to thank Stuff for providing the tickets and the guys at urboom for the cool prize. If you requested tickets for the show please get in touch and we’ll arrange those.

Any way onto the prize, I’d like to congratulate Russell for some how hacking random.org to throw his number out, so congrats Russell and better luck next time everybody else.

If you can attend the Best of Stuff Show I’d highly recommend it, I’ve been the last couple of years and it’s a lot of techie fun.

We’ve not had as many applicants as normal to our recent contest, so if you fancy winning an iBoom or getting your hands on some of our free tickets to the Stuff show now would be a good time to enter.

The contest/draw/raffle is open for another 24 hours.

It’s that time of year again when the Stuff Show comes into town. For the last couple of years we’ve been able to get our hands on some free tickets to give away, this year we’ve gone one better. Not only do we have 10 sets of free tickets to hand out but the guys over at urboom have generously donated us a BooM1 (worth £129.99) to give away.

Besides the stylish looking, you can easily connect your iPod, MP3 players and CD players with it. Boom is easy to carry with great mobility, you will find no problem whenever you want to enjoy in the world of rhyme and music, or share them with your family and friends.

To have a chance of winning simply leave a comment here saying what you think is the coolest gadget of 2007, the competition is open all but please let us know in your comment whether you can attend the Stuff Show in London (2nd – 4th November). We’ll close the contest and announce the winner on tomorrow. Good luck.

If you love gadgets and have a knack at finding new and obscure products before all your friends then how would you feel about writing for Coolest Gadgets?

We are looking for tech enthusiasts with a humorous (yet somewhat intelligent (debatable)) writing style to post daily on this site. In exchange you’ll get the satisfaction of having your work read be our 80K+ daily reader and you don’t need to pay us, we’ll pay you.

If you’d like to apply please send us a sample of your work and a few sentences explaining why you’d like to join the CG team. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Other techie mentions go to:

• Crave
• Core 77
• Born Rich
• Engadget
• Gizmodo
• Oh Gizmo
• Pink Tentacle
• Sci Fi Tech
• Shiny Shiny
• Tech Crunch
• Uber Gizmo
• Uncrate

And I’m really proud that CG was included in a list with those guys (and gals).

Cheers again PC Mag and especially Jennifer Deleo for doing whatever she did to get us on the list.

We wrote about the Jamie Oliver survival kit earlier in the month, it’s pretty cool but at the end of the day it’s a set of pans. However the marketing company are running a cool competition to get the word out called Hack the Kit

For a chance of winning a cool electric scooter all you need to do is submit a hack:

What’s a “hack” you say? Well, it’s a way of solving an everyday problem (like, what to do when you get hungry behind the wheel?) with an ingenious solution (fry an egg on your car’s motor!).

We want you to think of new ways to use the Jamie Oliver Survival Kit and come up with crazy, fun or useful hacks.

All ideas will be considered. No hack too bizarre. Just make sure it uses the Jamie Oliver Survival Kit, submit your hack idea here and you’ll go into the draw. Make sure you get your submission in by 12th October 2007.

Whoever submits the best hack will win the scooter (valued at ~$350) and if the hack is from one of our readers (which after reading some of the witty comments you lot leave we have a very good chance) we’ll also win an electric scooter, which we will then give away to another CG reader so there are a potential two scooters up for grabs (oh and 20 sets of Jamie Oliver pans).

To enter, you need to get your creative juices flowing and post your idea over on hack the kit and make sure you set the source to Coolest Gadgets.

Have fun.